Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin eBook

There had been a tremendous storm at Nome the day
before Ted arrived, and landing was more difficult
than usual, but, impatient as the boys were, at last
it seemed safe to venture, and the party left the steamer
to be put on a rough barge, flat-bottomed and stout,
which was hauled by cable to shore until it grounded
on the sands. They were then put in a sort of
wooden cage, let down by chains from a huge wooden
beam, and swung round in the air like the unloading
cranes of a great city, over the surf to a high platform
on the land.

“Well, this is a new way to land,” cried
Ted, who had been rather quiet during the performance,
and his father thought a trifle frightened. “It’s
a sort of a balloon ascension, isn’t it?”

“It must be rather hard for the miners, who
have been waiting weeks for their mail, when the boat
can’t land her bags at all,” said Mr. Strong.
“That sometimes happens. From November to
May, Nome is cut off from the world by snow and ice.
The only news they receive is by the monthly mail
when it comes.

“Over at Kronstadt the Russians have ice-breaking
boats which keep the Baltic clear enough of ice for
navigation, and plow their way through ice fourteen
feet thick for two hundred miles. The Nome miners
are very anxious for the government to try this ice-boat
service at Nome.”

“Why did people settle here in such a forlorn
place?” asked Ted, as they made their way to
the town, which they found anything but civilized.
“I like the Indian houses on the island better
than this.”

“Your island is more picturesque,” said
Mr. Strong, “but people came here for what they
could get.

“In 1898 gold was discovered on Anvil Creek,
which runs into Snake River, and this turned people’s
eyes in the direction of Nome. Miners rushed
here and set to work in the gulches inland, but it
was not till the summer of 1899 that gold was found
on the beach. A soldier from the barracks—­you
know this is part of a United States Military Reservation—­found
gold while digging a well near the beach, and an old
miner took out $1,200 worth in twenty days. Then
a perfect frenzy seized the people. They flocked
to Nome from far and near; they camped on the beach
in hundreds and staked their claims. Between one
and two thousand men were at work on the beach at
one time, yet so good-natured were they that no quarrels
seem to have occurred. Doctors, lawyers, barkeepers,
and all dropped their business and went to-rocking,
as they call beach-mining.”

“Oh, dad, let’s hurry and go and see it,”
cried Ted, as they hurried through their dinner at
the hotel. “I thought gold came out of deep
mines like copper, and had to be melted out or something,
but this seems to be different. Do they just
walk along the beach and pick it up? I wish I
could.”

“Well, it’s not quite so simple as that,”
said Mr. Strong, laughing. “We’ll
go and see, and then you’ll understand,”
and they went down the crooked streets to the sandy
beach.